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Sep 14, 2016

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke

Theme: I'M SO ANGRY I COULD JUST . . . The second word of common two-word phrases is transformed from a plural noun to a singular verb, which is a synonym for displaying anger.

20. Tailpipe emission : EXHAUST FUMES. In the industry, we really do call them tail pipe emissions, as per the clue, but do not get angry if someone wants to use alternative terminology.

28. Tug-of-war injuries : FRICTION BURNS. Abrasions caused by harshly rubbing the skin against some surface, in this case a rope. Losing the war adds insult to injury, whicj does nothign good for one's disposition.

42. Hair-smoothing hairs : BRUSH BRISTLES. When, for example, a cat is disturbed, the hairs of it back will stand upright, hence the reference. I was surprised that there actually are boar BRISTLE hair brushes, and am chagrined that I did not know this. How cilia me!

47. Shellfish cookouts : SEAFOOD BOILS. Here's a recipe. Of course, the sea creature most likely to be angry is the crab.

Hi gang, JazzBumpa here. Hope you're all in a good mood, and nothing in this puzzle perturbs you today.

Down

1. Hershey's toffee bar : SKOR. Sold in the U. S. since 1981, originally as competition for the Heath bar, which Hershey acquired along with the Leaf candy company in 1996. Both are still available.

9. Online shopping mecca : E-MALL. A web site that displays catalogues for various suppliers and charges a commission for sales. Seriously - this is a thing?

14. Chip in a chip : ANTE. This one baffled me for a while, but sticking with the theme concept of noun-verb interchangeability, we see chip presented first as a verb and then as a noun.

15. Seasonal song : NOEL. Christmas season.

16. Hunky-dory : A-OKAY. All systems are go.

17. Start of a knitting project : LOOP. Now Gail and Bruce are just needling us.

18. Prefix with space : AERO-. The complete word refers to technology and industry related to aviation and space flight.

19. Dry Italian wine : SOAVE. Meaning pleasant or agreeable, this white wine is from the Veneto region around Verona.

23. Hot state : IRE. More anger, spilling out from the theme.

24. Beatty/Hoffman box office flop : ISHTAR. A 1987 action comedy about two inept lounge singers who book a gig in Morocco and stumble into a 4-way cold war standoff. Widely considered to be one of the worst films ever made.

32. Former fillies : MARES. Now we're just horsing around. [See what I did there?]

34. Ready for a refill : EMPTY. Like a beer glass.

35. Freelancer's email attachment: Abbr. : INV. A freelancer works by the job, rather than for a specific employer, then sends the client an INVoice.

36. Glider on runners : SLED. For fun on a snowy hill.

37. Flowing garments : CAPES. Short, sleeveless cloaks.

Not always appropriate

38. Sonar signal : BLIP.

39. Word in a bride's bio : NEE. Referring to her maiden name.

40. Went a-courting : WOOED.

C'mon Frog; I'll buy you a beer.

41. Two-time US Open winner : SELES. Monica [b 1973] won 8 grand slam singles titles before her 20th birthday, and was the No. 1 player in the world in 1991 and 1992.

45. Library machine : COPIER.

46. "__ the Walrus" : I AM.

Stunning low fidelity

54. Medicare prescription drug section : PART D.

57. Pre-coll. : EL-HI. Elementary and High school come before college.

58. Brandy bottle letters : VSOP. Very Superior Old Pale, refers to a blended cognac that must be aged in oak casks for no fewer than 3 years. Most houses age longer than the minimum period.

59. Prospero's servant : ARIEL. A [non-alcoholic] spirit who had been trapped in a tree, now bound to Prospero, who freed him. Ariel causes the eponymous tempest in act one of Shakespeare's play.

6. Pound, but not ounce : POET. Ezra [1885-1972] Also a noted racist and fascist sympathizer. Very complex figure.

7. Medieval laborer : SERF. The lowest level of feudal society and economics. [Anyone who is interested can find my thoughts on the topic here. Caution, though- one cannot delve into the history of economic systems without also considering politics. That's taboo here, but not at the link. My ideas might put you in the state of today's theme. Caveat lector. You have been warned.]

43. Many a bridesmaid : SISTER. Sadly COUSIN also has 6 letters. It's all relative, I guess.

44. Less cluttered : TIDIER. Neatness, peeps!

48. Shift (for oneself) : FEND. To provide for or defend oneself. I'm not getting "shift" as a meaning here.

49. Hodgepodge : OLIO. Melange. I'm pretty sure I've never seen "OLIO" outside of a puzzle or this website.

50. "How awful!" : OH NO. Bad news.

51. Cruise stop : ISLE. Port of call.

52. Pork choice : LOIN. Well CHOP also has 4 letters. The LOIN comes from along the top of the RIB cage. On which, more later.

53. Do a vet's job : SPAY. Gender neutralization of your pet.

54. Chum : PAL. Buddy, bro, homie, peep.

55. NPR journalist Shapiro : ARI.

56. Bone in a cage : RIB. See, I wasn't Loin - I mean Lyin', nor was I ribbing you about anatomy. OTOH, I wanted to come up with a picture of a trombone in a cage - 'cuz, of course I would. Sadly, the best I could do is these guys behind a wrought iron fence.

FIR, but not fairly. I had E-MART* > E-MALL, CAN > LAT(rine)>LAV(atory), reached only by the ta-da in an alphabet run; MOO SHU and SOAVE were total unknowns using ESP and a WAG where they crossed, and I was very unsure of everything else in that corner.The theme was good, not needing a reveal, but at the same time seemed a bit undefined -- something, but I couldn't quite say what, set those few words apart from all the other words for angry.

JzB and Barry, maybe it's a regional thing. "DW's out of town, so I had to shift for myself." "DW's out of town, so I had to fend for myself." It's like the difference between a duck -- one foot is both the same.

Do you have a PART D drug plan? Your provider is required to send you a notice this month of any changes they're making. Open enrollment begins next month. I always go to medicare.gov and use the on-line tool to find the lowest cost provider for my current list of medications. I've had the current provider for the past two years; prior to that I changed every year.

Nothing about this outing to bristle about. Did have to modify one sec to in a sec, but it all came quite easily. Thanks Gail, Bruce and Ron.

I've never seen Ishtar in it's entirety. Tried, but it was just too awful to finish. It's no small irony that Dustin Hoffman is considered one of the finest actors ever, yet was in that flop.....to say nothing of American Buffalo. Yech!

I couldn't sleep so completed the puzzle at 5:30 AM and then worked out at the gym. I found this was a Monday-like walk in the park. Cute theme.College freshman soon learn they have to shift for themselves. I am more likely to use SHIFT than fend, but I do use both. One of my faves was chip in a chip for ANTE.We call the stiff hair-like projections on a toothbrush or hairbrush bristles, whether or not they are real animal hairs. The dictionary agrees, bristle can also mean "like animal bristles."17A CSO to our favorite knitter, Madame D.I enjoy URIS novels.A colleague and I used to celebrate with a SOAVE after school on Fridays.I love MOO SHU pork served on thin Chinese pancakes with yummy hoisin sauce.

Musings-Just like the Skippy on my English muffin today, G & B’s puzzle had just enough crunch!-I feel these theme emotions every time my doctor’s office hands me pen and paper and tells me I have to hand-enter all my data for the 20th time! It’s 2016 for cryin’ out loud!!-I don’t E-MALL, I Amazon-NOEL? Well Halloweens only six weeks away so…-Life borrowed this NASA phrase for its cover with Alan Shephard-Rotten Tomatoes - Ishtar 30%, Bee Movie – 50%-A pleasant Wed. musical diversion Frog Went-A-Courtin’ (2:45)-With today’s technology, the Titanic could have EASED BY that berg-Off to the dentist!

Thanks Gail and Bruce for a very nice Wednesday. I really enjoyed this one. I did SHIFT for myself as I sought no help along the way, including calling out to my husband in the living room! I have been on hiatus here, mostly lurking, but too busy to do a puzzle or follow up here. As I have mused before: How is this lack of time possible?! I AM retired!!

I am a second generation descendant of SERFS who came to America in the early 20th Century.

My favorite today was, of course, LOOP! My current favorite cast-on is the German Twisted, AKA Old Norwegian. Tried and true. Today I am casting on a scarf for my grandson. It looks like USC colors to me, but apparently it's what Harry Potter wore. That's who he'll be for Halloween. I decided to make it useful and real. He probably won't tire of it too soon--he's only 6. Off to find the needles I need for this project.

JazzB, Thanks so much for another spectacular tour. I love the 'Bones in a cage!!!

I missed the cross of MOOSHU and SOAVE (had a U for the O). I had never heard of FEND for shift, but I agree with Lemonade about language diversity. During a business trip less than 100 miles from where I grew up, I discovered that everyone I interacted with used "fit" as the past tense of"fight." I had never heard of that before or since. People under 50 seem to prefer writing "alot" to "a lot", and my PhD chemistry professor sister (in her 70s) defends the practice.

My nit is BLIP. To me, that's a RADAR term. "Ping" is a SONAR equivalent. I know that modern SONAR sets have visual displays, but I question if their operators use the term BLIP.

Unknowns were IPSA (in this phrase), ISHTAR, ARI (Shapiro), ARIEL (in association with Prospero) and BEEMOVIE. Don't know when I will finally remember IMPEI. I have given myself a dope slap the last ten times I couldn't recall his name without perps.

Headline from Sydney Morning Herald: "A century on and a sonar blip: has navy found WWI submarine?""News from a Defence source of the sonar blip emerged as descendants on board the HMAS Yarra joined a dawn wreath-laying service...."

HG, hand up for fuming at the repetitious pen and paper forms from doctors. Alan has a gazillion doctors, each with another form to fill out. I always carry a small notebook with all the doctors' names and info to copy for the forms.Also hand up for shopping at Amazon instead of EMALL. Amazon seems to have almost everything and I like the customer reviews. My $99 prime membership is more than reimbursed by the free shipping.

Easy enough, but hand up for having paused at Blip being connected to SONAR. However, YR's example makes sense of it, since the blip is an artifact of the operator's display, whether RADAR or SONAR. The Ping is more analogous to the outgoing radio wave from a radar antenna. So I filled in and moved on.

I have always taken "Shift", in the fend meaning, to be British usage. Never looked it up, though.

JzB - CyberMonday was a real-thing back in the day when folks only had dial-up at home. You could see network traffic spike after Black Friday when folks got to the office's T1. Too, I'd say Amazon & eBay are eMALLs - there are other vendors within the sites.

YR - you also get Amazon TV w/ that Prime "membership." Occasionally, we find something we like - I think DW got Prime to watch Orange is the New Black; it does save $$ at NOEL time.

I really didn't catch on to the theme until I finished and gave it a long, hard look. I take that as being somewhat inured by the prevalence of the unwarranted anger and overreaction displayed so often in today's topsy-turvy world. OTOH, maybe I'm just slow on the uptake! 🤔 No bumps except for emart/emall. Shift is common in this neck of the words as is shiftless, meaning a lazy person.

Thanks, Gail and Bruce, for a mid-week treat, as always, and thanks, JzB, for your witty and wise write-up, as always.

Watched "Loving the Coopers" last night and even though it was filled with silly cliches and stereotypes, it was a welcome change from some of the darker, more disturbing movies of recent viewing. And the cast was top-notch: Alan Arkin, Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Marisi Tomei, Olivia Wilde, Ed Helms, Anthony Mackie, Amanda Seyfried, June Squibb and Jon Tenney. And, best of all, it had a happy ending. Oh, BTW, it was narrated by the family dog, Rags, AKA Steve Martin! 🤗

Misty, sorry to hear of your bout with insomnia and, sad to say, I have no solutions to offer. I'm fortunate that I very rarely have trouble sleeping. Maybe another Cornerite has some suggestions. Good luck.

Anon-T (from early this am) - never knew that Three Dog Night performed with an orchestra. I must say, "One" did translate into a beautiful orchestral piece, but agree - I wanted to take a nap about three minutes into it! Thanks.

Thank you, Gail and Bruce for an A-OKAY puzzle today! Mostly it was a rapid romp though SOAVE crossing MOOSHU held me up; I just couldn't see it then realized that SOAVE sounds a bit like the Spanish word suave meaning nice, gentle, etc. and that finished it. The French, LIBRE, is exactly the same in Spanish; if only all French would be so easy.

IPSA took all perps. I know ipso and ipse but not IPSA. It's Latin so it makes sense. FEND is more familiar to me than shift but I've seen both in that context. VSOP never stays with me so had to wait for a couple of perps to finish it.

JZB:Thank you for your illuminating and witty writing. When I have more time I'll check on your blog.

Misty:I am sorry to hear about your insomnia and wish I could offer you some solution. Usually I just get up and read until sleep eventually takes over. Hopefully it's a passing phase for you.

Anon T, I have watched some Amazon TV with Prime, but not much. I used to like the Prime lending library. Then Amazon automatically updated my Kindle Fire with a program that has many glitches. It switched on Parental Controls and supplied a password without my control or knowledge. I cannot switch the controls off without using the unknown password, so my lending is blocked. Amazon tech support could not help. I see on the Internet that this has happened to others. GRR!

What a great Gail and Bruce Wednesday puzzle, and I got the whole thing! Yay! Wahoo!And delightful expo, JazzB.

Not too many literary references today, although I liked ARIEL. It's a pity Ezra Pound ended up so disastrously. He was incredibly supportive of new experimental writers, both men and women, early in his career--including James Joyce, whose early works he helped get published in some of the new literary journals of the day. But he took terrible positions in his later life.

I knew Tinbeni was going to like the liquor items.

No insomnia last night, thank goodness, so I'm going to be okay. Thanks, Irish Miss and Lucina.

I'm finally here in real time. Did Gail throw in ELHI just to get the Anons BOILing?I took french instead of Latin so I had IPSO until I noticed our ubiquitous baseball family. Along with OTT we have ORR in hockey and AOKI in golf.

Speaking of same, I'd thought AOKI was the one who'd double hit in the US open but a similar dh in the recent Senior open reckoned back to Chen.

From xwords earlier for which I couldn't OPine.

BTW. The FENS is the original Brook/stream/marshy area a mile east of Fenway park. It was a notorious drowning pool in the 20s and 30s.

I see ASIMOV was clued in recently as well. That jives with JzB's piece especially if your buying my Hari Selden unmasking. Note: He has a "Mule" character who one might think was a presage.

Back to XW. SKOR, TWIX, ROLO etc.?? KNOX sealed it once MYERS couldn't fit. Oh, that reminds me. Florida coastal city??? Begins with S and end with E and Seminole won't fit???

Thanks Gail and Bruce for a well-crafted, fun puzzle. Once again, I didn't get the theme until JB's. witty expo, but that's par for the course. No nits here. A fast, smooth solve.

Spitzboov, I'm in the same minority, but I'm not surprised. So many things I was taught back in the Dark Ages have been proven wrong (Remember "rood". YR?), that I am reminded of the first line to Paul Simon's song "Kodachrome".

No problem with shift for fend. I use both words interchangeably, and probably prefer shift. Since I also prefer a straight shift in a car, one of my favorite expressions is, "People who rely on an automatic transmission are shiftless." You can use that; I've never copyrighted it.

Happy belated birthdays to Husker Gary and to Steve. Thanks for all you do for this blog.

Well, time to go reap the crabgrass harvest. (Would that there were a market for the stuff!)

5d "be right with you" I had "one sec." instead of in a sec.So the pound/ounce trickery at 6d caused my alphabet runs to fail.In retrospect I could, & should have figured it out, but it was notuntil after I gave up that I realized my mistake.

18a, prefix with space, I knew to be aero.However I did not catch the transposition mistakecaused by "one sec"making it earo...

Jzb, I took the trombone in a cage pic to be a challenge,& thought changing the search wording might reveal a pic.But you were right, that is a tough one!

Jinx, your mention of "fit" for fought reminded me of Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho which apparently was from African-American dialect (or dialect of whoever taught them English).

Similar to how my wife, whose grandfather was from Maine, used "het" as a past tense of heat or warm ("I knew she spent the night with her boyfriend, because her car was already het up when she picked me up this morning"). Probably not unique to Maine, though.

I sorta got the theme. I think it is a shout-out to my mood with my unwanted guests. However, a whiff of odor in the air has me thinking this little ordeal may be over until the next one ventures in.

Shift/FEND for oneself was in my vocabulary growing up. Have done a lot of that throughout my lifetime. Trying to decide if it would be less taxing to climb via step stool up on a sturdy chair and scrape down the top of the kitchen door to the garage that won't shut. Or take the door off, scrape down the door, try to rehang the door.

ESP: IPSA, SOAVE, ISHTAR.

Knitting project: LOOP is correct, of course. But first I tried "cast". As Madam said, one casts on those loops. I haven't knitted in over 30 years. I'm surprised I remembered that.

35a. I wrote free-lance for about half my writing career when my kids were small.

Misty, glad your insomnia seems abated. I find that any excitement like a party or cops arresting people in front of my house or mice will trigger a cycle of insomnia for several days/weeks. Spend more time as a nocturnal animal than a diurnal being.Read myself to sleep most periods.

Another theme - to which I paid absolutely no attention.Again, I doubt it would have helped my solving time, as nothing in today's pzl offered much in the way of resistance. The only fill that seemed even slightly strange was SEAFOOD BOILS. I guess that applies to lobster, or indirectly to crab (i.e., steaming them), but my favorites are shrimp or prawns best served grilled.

I have always found it "interesting" how Ezra POUND was handled after the war. What were we (the allies) to do with one of the world's most brilliant poets and critics who happened to take the Fascist side, not just teaming up with them, but broadcasting scores of propaganda lectures on behalf of history's most reviled enemy? He was arrested for treason and arraigned, but declared insane and transferred to St. Elizabeth's hospital (the same hospital where John Hinckley was later confined). In his time at St. Elizabeth's, he was free to continue his reading and writing and receive visitors for hours at a time. He occupied his own suite of rooms. The political motivation behind his "insanity" classification became fairly transparent when he was later released to return to Italy where he lived until his death at age 87.

Gail and Bruce, I just love your puzzles.There are always a word or two that I have not heard for a very long time, and they bring back good childhood memories. Fav clue was "bone in a cage". Soave, VSOP and Ariel were my only slow downs.